Demos retreat on welfare plan

Steven A. Capps, EXAMINER CAPITOL BUREAU CHIEF

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, July 8, 1997

1997-07-08 04:00:00 PDT CALIFORNIA -- SACRAMENTO - Democrats decided quietly Tuesday to withdraw the final two pieces of their welfare package rather than face a repeat of the stinging veto the governor handed down on Monday.

As the state budget impasse reached its eighth day Tuesday, Gov. Wilson had threatened to veto the two massive welfare bills as soon as they reached his desk.

Senate Democratic leaders then ordered their clerks to hold the bills up to avoid the veto.

The Democrat-controlled Legislature passed the three welfare bills Monday, despite strong Republican opposition and knowing Wilson was likely to veto every one of them.

The Republican governor, who has made cutting welfare a theme during his two terms, followed through and vetoed the first measure before legislators were even done debating the final one.

"The clock is running," Wilson said in a stinging three-page veto message, in which he said the Democratic plan was a "stunning rejection" of the welfare reform measure signed by President Clinton last year.

"I can only assume that it was crafted by the most over-zealous of welfare rights advocates; and that many members of the majority who voted for these bills had no real understanding of their provisions or pernicious impacts," Wilson said.

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"It's a disrespectful way to treat a co-equal branch of government," said Senate President pro tem Bill Lockyer, D-Hayward. "Essentially what the governor did was flip us off."

The battle over welfare stems from last year's action by Congress. It adopted a new system for aid to families, requiring states to follow suit with new programs requiring recipients to work and imposing a five-year lifetime limit on welfare.

In California, legislative Republicans and Democrats and the governor have spent the past six months disagreeing about how to implement the changes. Now the matter is holding up adoption of a new state budget.

The measure vetoed by Wilson contained several key elements of the Democratic welfare plan, including creation of a massive child care system for aid recipients seeking work.

It also contained provisions allowing able-bodied welfare recipients to forgo work if they wanted to attend college, a provision Wilson specifically opposed.

The other two pieces of the package passed by the Legislature on Monday were expected to be used as vehicles for any upcoming compromise.

Those two bills included a host of provisions opposed by the governor and legislative Republicans, including work requirements, work exemptions, an extension of the General Assistance welfare program and a job creation program.

Observers feared that the fight over welfare could spawn another extended state budget impasse. The state budget has been late 10 of the last 11 years.

Without a budget in place, the state lacks the technical authority to pay its bills. First to feel the pinch would be about 2,000 legislative employees, who would not be paid next week.

Health care providers - including doctors, hospitals and pharmacies - who provide services under the state's MediCal program also would not be paid. Their bills come due in about two weeks.

What California will do to change its welfare laws - and how much it will cost - is an essential part of the proposed $68 billion budget.

In the Senate, just one Democrat voted against the Democratic welfare plan Monday. Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, argued that, among other things, the measure prevented anyone ever convicted of a drug-related felony from receiving welfare.

Republicans pointed out that that was a provision of the new federal law.

The Democratic plan would cost about $1 billion more a year than the governor's, causing Republicans to call it overly generous.

Hoping to drum up public support for his tougher approach to welfare reform, Wilson scheduled a series of meetings Tuesday between his senior staff and reporters and editors from around the state to discuss the differences between the Republican and Democratic approaches to rewriting California's welfare laws.

Beyond federal law

Wilson's plan in many cases goes beyond the new federal law, which requires able-bodied welfare recipients to find jobs or participate in job training, and places a lifetime five-year limit on welfare.

Wilson would limit recipients to two years on welfare within any three-year period - new recipients would be limited to one year within any two-year period - with a year off before reapplying. The lifetime five-year ban also would apply.

The Democrats' plan calls for recipients to find work within two years, and if they cannot, to perform community service jobs while looking for work.

Other provisions

The two sides are far apart on other major provisions as well, including:

*Work: Wilson would require recipients to work at least 32 hours a week. Democrats would require 20, although counties would have the option of requiring 32.

*Exemptions: Republicans would exempt from work requirements single parents of infants 12 weeks old or younger, severely disabled parents or people 60 years of age or older, among others.

The Democrats would exempt parents of infants, without defining infants. Republicans said that would be children younger than 2 years old under current law.

Also exempted would be parents of children age 10 or younger if no child care is available; victims of domestic violence; pregnant women in the third trimester; students attending classes for up to 30 months; and

"other good causes."

*Grant level: The governor would cut monthly grants by 15 percent for people staying on welfare longer than six months. The Democrats' plan would not cut benefits.

Senate leader Bill Lockyer, D-Hayward, said the Democratic plan would ensure that more welfare recipients eventually find jobs.

"Welfare will be changed as we know it . . . never again would there be an able-bodied person staying on welfare for their entire life," Lockyer said.

But Republicans said the plan was too generous. "This ought to be called the "welfare enrichment act,' because that's what it is doing: enriching welfare recipients," said Assemblyman Gary Miller, R-Diamond Bar, when the bills were debated Monday in the Assembly.

The governor has been meeting behind closed doors with legislative leaders in an attempt to reach agreement on several budget-related issues, which also include state employee pay raises and Wilson's call for a business tax cut.

Those talks were delayed Monday because of the lengthy debates in the Assembly and Senate but resumed Tuesday.&lt;